Ladies Reserves drop their first points of the new season.

Rovers Ladies Reserves dropped their first points of the season after being held to a 2-2 draw at home to Coventry City.

The home side started brightly, controlling the game for the majority of the first half and reducing the visitors to very few passages of play.

On 28 minutes, Rovers finally made the breakthrough when Hollie Kelsh’s corner wasn’t dealt with by the Coventry defence and the ball fell to Shannon Weston, who made no mistake from six yards out.

Rovers continued to press and create chances, but squandered good opportunities to be out of sight by the break.

The hosts were slow to get going after the interval, which allowed Coventry to gain a foothold in the game and on the hour mark, midfielder Emily Blake was allowed time and space to carry the ball into the Rovers half and fire a 35-yard shot over the despairing dive of Chloe Grice in the Rovers goal.

This put Coventry on the front foot and on 72 minutes, Blake cut in from the left and her cross evaded the Rovers defence and zipped across the surface into the far corner of the net.

During the closing stages, Rovers finally managed to have some decent spells of attacking play and on 80 minutes, a cleared corner fell to Zoe Rutter, who volleyed the ball into the roof of the net from just inside the box.

Jade Boulton was sent off for a second bookable offence two minutes from time, but 10-man Rovers could have won it at the death when a pin-point cross from Emma Moorhouse found Ainsley Strickland in the box, but her glancing header went just wide.

Manager Zac Foley said: “This was a disappointing result for us. After the game, it felt like a defeat in many ways because of the way we should have had the game wrapped up and been out of sight by half-time.

“I thought we dominated play throughout the first half, creating good goalscoring opportunities, but ruthlessness in the final third was missing.

“At half-time we spoke about not allowing Coventry time on the ball and pressing quicker, so it was disappointing to concede their first goal.

“We need to start killing games off when we have the chances. On the positive side, we are still unbeaten in the league and have a cup game against Nottingham Forest next week, where we need a reaction.”

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